If you need help, LISTEN to us..We have experience..

It's time for my yearly dissertation (RANT) on my idea of forum etiquette.

Several times in the recent past, a new member comes on and asks / begs for our help. Then they can't be bothered to answer our following questions fully..
Then next step seems to involve telling us why we are wrong and we don't know what we are talking about....Nor do we need any more information....

Newbies here is a free clue..If you knew how to fix the Toughbook, you would not need to ask for our help...
It's respectful to answer with, "I don't feel that's my issue but you have the experience so I will try it".
Instead I have been getting "That's not my issue, now tell me what I want to hear"

This same type of situation has happened several times in the past 2 weeks....
How are we expected to help people? THEY ask us for help and then won't LISTEN to us anyway.
WE are immediately told everything we suggest is wrong.
The people asking for help don't even take 5 minutes to TRY what we suggest. Or even bother to properly answer our questions.
We ask specific questions for a reason..
We have seen these same Toughbook problems before. WE DO know what to check first. We also know what NEVER goes bad on a Toughbook.
I have owned, repaired and gave away or sold over 50 Toughbooks.....But you attempting to repair ONE means you know more than us????????
Just maybe someone ASKING me for help would at least be courteous enough to humor me and say "Thank you I will try that.".
Instead of "You are wrong, I want it MY way"..It's not a conversation if 1 of the 2 people are not listening to the other...And so 1 of us is not necessary...

Toughbook hints:
Toughbook CF52's have power port issues..They melt...Toughbook BIOS's do not go bad..The only BIOS issue is people attempting to remove a password...Which you won't do with a Toughbook BIOS flash...People OFTEN use wrong AC adapters and melt power ports and burn out fuses....Toughbooks are comparatively slow..They don't have high frame rates.....Buy a DELL to play games on...
Toughbooks are a PITA to reinstall drivers..Buy the recovery disk......Toughbooks need the OFFICIAL Panasonic drivers...Heat sink pads dry out on Toughbooks.....3.3v will not power a 5v device....GOBI's will work but it requires lots of effort......64bit Windows is a huge PITA to get drivers to work on an older Toughbook...Trying to connect a USB port to the pcmcia WILL destroy the motherboard...Not enough amperage or voltage PERIOD.

Don't buy a dump truck and expect it to be a Ford Mustang GT.....

Educational discussion has concluded.....

 

What he said,between us have passed hundreds of Toughbooks. The guys here are pros at this and it amazes me the downright rude answers we get when we suggest something.

 

I am sitting here reading this post trying to come back with something but I think you pretty much covered it all.

 

This is one of the two most polite forums I know about.

Perhaps new folks are expecting to get flamed. It doesn't happen here due to the moderators and the type of people that answer the questions. They/we LIKE to help. Because we are learning too.

Toughbooks are in a class of their own but there are a lot of different models and sub-models....some very old. Hence the request for full model number. In many cases I have a duplicate in my house so may be a bit of help if I know what machine you are using.

Respect for superior knowledge is appreciated always, even if you chose not to try the suggestions. Also appreciated are please, thank you and sorry.

*Superior is a strong word but in this context just means we may know a little bit more than new users*

Finally, If you ask a question, be open to trying the answers that you get.

I'm done.

Thank you.

Jeff

 

Columbus Day Beef: Where's the beef?
My biggest beef is the people that never come back to tell us how things went, and whether they resolved their issues. I remember my first CF-29 MK2 5 years ago...The kid had a house full of computer brands, and one Toughbook. He threw in a cd case that had a restore disk with all the drivers. Turns out it was a homemade job, not the official recovery disks. I was clueless, and when I added a new hard drive, started having lots of issues with drivers. You all were very helpful and although both sides got a little frustrated, I stuck with it and figured out I did not have, and needed the official recovery disks. At least I thought I needed them, until I discovered Linux Operating System. Enough Beef...

 

Here, here Shawn!! You guys have helped me immensely over the years. Without this forum, I would probably have hated and got rid of my non-working ToughBook. Every issue has been resolved except some experimental ones that were just wishful thinking.

Thanks to all!!

 

And that is why we are still here helping members like you. I do know some times things get lost intranslation but then other times it's very clear. We all love our Toughbook and want to help everyone with there Toughbook problems. The answer might not always be right but we are at least trying.

 

i am reminded of something my dad said to me when i was young and did not follow what he said :
"do you think i am telling you this stuff for my health ?"
if i had any regrets about the past , one would be not really ever thanking my dad for taking the time to care and share what he had learned over the years .

there is no *authoritarian" attitude in these forums .
no single person can or ever will know *everything* .
being "cool" takes effort ... being the north end of a southbound horse is all to easy be .

 

My dad passed away 10 years ago but I can still hear him saying them same very words.

 

The people in this and the other forum are a bunch of great raving lunatics. I greatly value the time, effort and wisdom they have shared with me since I picked up this new monkey on my back.

 

Guess you know us pretty good now.

 

Avoid having a stroke..
A bit of brain damage takes the concept of raving lunatic to a whole new level. At least now I scare away the idiots at work.

 

And that's called a Toughbook?

 

Even a Toughbook can't break Ohms law. It's pure physics.
Pcmcia specs for ALL brands is 3.3v at 5ma
USB specs for ALL laptops 5v at 2000ma.
Do the math....Something WILL overheat. Heat is a by product of resistance.
Pcmcia does not have enough voltage. The adapters boost the voltage from 3.3v to 5v.
Ohms law..when voltage goes UP, current goes DOWN. Not enough current creates resistance which creates heat.

Actually it won't destroy the motherboard, it blows out the fuses. Fuses which are smaller than 1mm square. Soldering 1mm SMD's is beyond most people. So I kept it short and said it will destroy the motherboard. That is the end result if a fuse blows and you don't have the skill to repair it.

Your comment seems to be inflammatory. You like many others don't consider HOW most of these people on THIS board use their Toughbooks. We do not build Toughbooks for playing World of Warcraft or to see how high a frame rate we can get. These are WORK laptops. In police cars and firetrucks. On forklifts and operating industrial equipment. Toughbooks are in continuous use 24/7 for years at a time. Long after the "other" brands have been scrapped.
The people asking questions on THIS forum may have someones LIFE depend on the Toughbook and advice we give. A motherboard fuse failure because someone stuck a poorly designed pcmcia adapter in is not acceptable.Those pcmcia to usb 3 adapters are crap in ANY laptop.
I consider WHO is asking a question and HOW they are using the equipment before I give advice.

PC Magazine, in its September 2009 issue, reported an industry average failure rate of 21.0%. Panasonic's service records (as of September, 2009, for units in and out of warranty) show an average annual failure rate of only 2.99% for Toughbook mobile computers.

Ohm's Law
Combining the elements of voltage, current, and resistance, Ohm developed the formula:



Where

• V = Voltage in volts
• I = Current in amps
• R = Resistance in ohms

This is called Ohm’s law. Let’s say, for example, that we have a circuit with the potential of 1 volt, a current of 1 amp, and resistance of 1 ohm. Using Ohm’s Law we can say:



Let’s say this represents our tank with a wide hose. The amount of water in the tank is defined as 1 volt and the “narrowness” (resistance to flow) of the hose is defined as 1 ohm. Using Ohms Law, this gives us a flow (current) of 1 amp.

Using this analogy, let’s now look at the tank with the narrow hose. Because the hose is narrower, its resistance to flow is higher. Let’s define this resistance as 2 ohms. The amount of water in the tank is the same as the other tank, so, using Ohm’s Law, our equation for the tank with the narrow hose is



But what is the current? Because the resistance is greater, and the voltage is the same, this gives us a current value of 0.5 amps:

 

I guess it is very useful for "WORK" to have 2 additional USB ports from PCMCIA. I see now that it's dangerous to do but I can understand people keep asking about this exact thing because those adapters were widely used for multiple laptops and worked fine. Heck, even at USB 3.0 speeds!

 

this pdf describes one system for dual voltage pcmcia specifications :
http://cds.linear.com/docs/en/design-note/dn93f.pdf

current availability on usb 2.0 ports is normally limited to 500mA (900 mills for usb 3.0) ... unless the device and port *negotiate* for more current .
(kind of like asking the teller at the bank to give you more than a couple of bucks)

there have been revisions to both pcmcia and usb over the years .
look at the changes in usb 2.0 over the years : http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/usb20_docs/
the absolute best way to tell what you have in front of you is to look at the spec sheets for the device(s) in question ... especially if they are a little long in the tooth .

 

Well I used them up until 3 years ago on my CF-29. It up and died on me doing a restore...was using a external cd-rom. Never used them cards again.

 

Toughbooks have 2000ma fuses on the USB ports.
Those Pcmcia adapters "may" work on low current draw devices. Flash drives etc..
They will fail for any mechanical device unless it is self powered.
I won't use the pcmcia adapter, but if someone MUST use one, I suggest one with a single usb port and flash drives only.
I try to give advice on the cautious side. I never know what stupid stunt someone reading may try..

I will find the link on this subject..hold on..

 

As CWB32 pointed out, my numbers were not completely correct. But my point is still valid..
pcmcia 400ma Total.
2 usb 3.0 ports
divide that 400ma by 2 = 200ma each port minus what the card itself uses.
That works out to guesstimate of 175ma per usb port
USB port is looking for 500-900ma per port..
That is a shortage of 325 -725ma per usb port..
And that math is BEFORE calculating the current loss to step up the voltage.

Here's an old post about those adapters.

The AKE USB Cards are ALL cheap Chinese made crap, none of them are made by NEC. they USE an NEC made (or licensed) chip.

These USB cards work great when they work, however quality control is very hit or miss - on average 1 in 3 DOA, and of the 6 I bought, 1 still functions after a couple years use. I can take credit for smoking one of them by trying to plug a USB powered CDROM into it; they just can't handle the load from ANYTHING normally powered by the USB port (Well, anything more than a USB Flash drive).

The problem is this: they have an inverter circuit inside to step up the 3.3V from the PCMCIA bus to the 5V out for the USB ports, but the PCMCIA bus can only supply a TOTAL of 400ma current to the card; this includes the power the card uses itself. The specifications for a USB 2.0 port mandate up to 500ma EACH and there's TWO on the AKE card.

Yes, they provide a power dongle so you can draw additional power from an existing USB port; that is how I've kept my last one working this long. I NEVER use without that dongle EXCEPT if I'm plugging a SINGLE USB Thumbdrive into it. I NEVER use a USB-powered CDROM or HDD with it; even with the dongle it burned out two of them on me.

That said they're pretty cheap here in the States or direct from Hong Kong; you're not going to get any better quality by buying from Amazon, though of course you will get the peace of mind that their customer service offers.

My process was: bought one off Amazon; it died. Bought several from Hong Kong, but they were so cheap it didn't pay to ship them back when they died. You get the idea.

mnem
Economies of scale.

 

Shawn,

Reading your posts over 99% of the time, helped me with any ToughBook issues I ever had. Like x 1,000,000,000 times over. And from the heart and Soul! Never forget this! Keep it coming! From the ultimate ToughBook torture tester in ordinary real life ( and he's not Military, Law Enforcement, Construction, or oilfield worker). ToughBook= Wheelchair using Spastic/Athetoid Cerebral Palsy/Spina Bifida me. I trip over laptops, fall on laptops, make laptops bounce worse than UPS/FedEx/DHL, and mount them to power wheelchairs which go on rough country which make police cruisers look like soccer mom in a minivan. And my Full Rugged work Toughbooks put up with me. And live and last long. Never forget this! Tired of crappy laptops which must be babied, and in cases, BUY A TOUGHBOOK! THIS MEANS YOU!

 

"... make laptops bounce worse than UPS/FedEx/DHL ..."
ya mean like this ?

 

As in I trip over my own feet and fall on them, sometimes my laptop bounces on concrete when leg muscles have a mind of their own. Why do you think my employers buy me full rugged ToughBooks and expensive wheelchair mounts for company laptops. Outdoor field remote broadcasts and news duty is also murder on laptops.

 

yep ... i hear ya .
i have neuropathy in both legs and both arms .
at times it is worse than at other times , changes in 10 minutes , and does make certain tasks a challenge .
my '30 can withstand hard knocks that will kill normal machines .

i remember what a PITA it was keeping those high dollar cassette ENG machines in working order .
marantz made a few different models :
http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/marantz_stereo_casette_recorder_c.html
the news/production people could not be bothered to clean the heads/tape path with the cleaning kits i put together for them .

 

Agree with you all the way. Fluctuating muscle tone often made a lot of repair work for your combo man here. And he had to pull rabbits out of hats to make gear work due to his own muscles misbehaving. In my case, heads stayed clean and tape paths maintained, and I showed every operator how.

 

Being a member of way too many forums in varying subjects I have to say this is one of the more mature one's. I've been a member here around 7 years. I don't frequent it as much as I used to or as much as I would like due to time constraints, but I know if I ever need some advice or whatever it might be I can ask and get a very knowledgeable answer. You never see any ****ty attitudes!
I think the biggest common denominator in attitudes on forums is the age and income of it's members. The cheaper, more easily accessible a product is the younger the general audience is going to be.

If you come here and seek help or advice just simply be polite, mature and leave the attitude somewhere else.

 

I could not of said it better. We do have a great bunch of members here.

 

I like this forum to. IT workers are not always well known for treating jr It workers with respect and are rude arrogant people. It is a good forum and I never put anyone down But people need to at least spend some time learning the issues on there toughbooks. The other day, I was sold a cf-29 and the fn key was on. Simple google search showed me how to turn it off.

 

Bumping this up so maybe newcomers will read it. It seems to still be very relevent.

 

Bumpitty bump bump.

 

I have in many cases seen totally wrong and just outright retarded responses to Noobs questions.
All I'm saying is "FN and hotkeys". People that are new to a forum are not any dumber than the average forum user. If they ask in a specific way. They don't need a lame run around.
These computers are quite quirky and for instance pressing the wrong Key can kill your sound with no clue as to what happened.(Im saying this as an example)

Apart from that. It may be good to analyze why someone has difficulty to follow one thought process,maybe there is something wrong with the way the knowledge was conveyed. I always start with myself if someone does't seem to get what I'm trying to tell them. Patience is a virtue after all

 

First, I would like to say that this forum rocks! Sometimes it is a while in between visits. I am not that knowledgeable as far as fixing computers and I will be the first to admit it.

Second, thank you to CWB32 for posting that video. I tell people about that commercial but can never find it. I always thought it was a Samsonite commercial and had problems finding it.

 

CWB32 was the star of that commercial. People say we look alike. I can't see it.